The New Republic Staff

August 24, 2012

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy!
Herman Melville went to Jerusalem in search of spiritual enlightenment.

August 23, 2012

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy!
Two decades ago, conservatives were railing against the liberal influence of Hollywood. Then they stopped. Jonathan Chait explains how the right lost the culture war.
NYMag | 16 min (4,024 words)
Genetic codex: Harvard scientists have written a book entirely in DNA.
The Guardian | 3 min (751 words)
Why learn other languages?

August 22, 2012

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy!
Wikileaks was supposed to transform journalism. But then its epic downfall began.
Foreign Policy | 7 min (1,660 words)
What happens when a bunch of urban northerners descend on a book sale in the sweltering Texan heat? Larry McMurtry on his Archer City auction.
NYRB | 4 min (1,014 words)
Steve Jobs was a genius with a short temper.

August 21, 2012

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy!
Collision course: How a Texan physicist almost discovered the God Particle.

August 17, 2012

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy!
Mormon missionaries in Kosovo: a new and curious addition to a complicated religious landscape.
Religion and Politics | 6 min (1,435 words)
You can view the Olympics as a thrilling athletic spectacle.

August 16, 2012

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy!
Quantitative approaches to the humanities are in. But will they ruin the arts?
Scientific American | 8 min (1,934 words)
The Literary Fake: Is fiction that pretends to be true a harmless rhetorical game, or something darker?
New Haven Review | 37 min (9,178 words)
Chicago is America’s first architectural city.

August 15, 2012

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy!
Eraserhead: A brief history of our messy, affectionate relationship with the pencil eraser.
The New Yorker | 3 min (834 words)
Lonely Planet is the guidebook of choice for lefty backpackers.

August 14, 2012

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy!
Obama should take on Romney’s tax record. It would make for a powerful story about wealth and privilege that the president doesn’t want to tell.
Rolling Stone | 5 min (1,168 words)
Gu Kailai has been cast as a woman driven to murder by greed and overwhelming ambition. The historical precedent for this figure?

August 13, 2012

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy!
Ultra-orthodox women’s lit is on the rise. Who are the women behind it?
Tablet | 7 min (1,686 words)
The cult of busyness: Does working hard make us less productive?
New Statesman | 4 min (1,019 words)
Michel Houellebecq’s novels are apocalyptic and pornographic.

August 10, 2012

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy!
Thomas Friedman’s columns are not just self-indulgent. They are an assault on humanity.
Jacobin Magazine | 7 min (1,717 words)
One woman reflects: does owning a gun make her, and other black females, a frontier feminist or an insurrectionist?
Bitch Magazine | 15 min (3,803 words)
Obama inherited strained relationships with Europe.